| Sonic the Hedgehog 3 | |
|---|---|
North American boxart |
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| Developer(s) | Sonic Team Sega Technical Institute |
| Publisher(s) | Sega |
| Designer(s) | Takashi Thomas Yuda (character design) Hirokazu Yasuhara (lead designer) Yuji Naka (programming) |
| Composer(s) | Supervising Composer: C. Cirocco Jones Composers: Brad Buxer Bobby Brooks Geoff Grace Doug Grigsby III Darryl Ross Additional Music: Howard Drossin Jun Senoue Tokuhiko Uwabo Michael Jackson |
| Platform(s) | Sega Genesis, Microsoft Windows, Virtual Console, Nintendo DS (Sonic Classic Collection), PlayStation 3 (Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection), Xbox 360 (XBLA) |
| Release date(s) | |
| Genre(s) | Platform game |
| Mode(s) | Single player, multiplayer |
| Rating(s) |
ESRB: K-A (re-release) (1996) ELSPA: 3+ |
| Media/distribution | 16-megabit cartridge, CD-ROM |
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is a 1994 platform video game in the Sonic the Hedgehog series for the Sega Genesis. It was developed in the United States by members of Sonic Team working at Sega Technical Institute, and was published by Sega, debuting worldwide in the first half of 1994. The game is a sequel to Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and follows on directly from the end of the game, in which Sonic defeated his enemy, Dr. Robotnik; crash-landing on a floating island, Sonic encounters new character Knuckles the Echidna, and must once more retrieve the Chaos Emeralds while also working to stop Dr. Robotnik from relaunching his ship, the Death Egg.
The game is closely tied to its direct sequel Sonic & Knuckles, as the two games were originally one until time constraints and cartridge costs forced the game to be split into two interlocking parts.
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While improvements are present, the game is still very similar to the basic set-up of the original Sonic the Hedgehog game. The game still plays as a 2D sidescrolling platformer, with the player directing Sonic through levels and around obstacles within a time limit of 10 minutes. Like Sonic 2, players have the option of picking between Sonic, Tails, or both, with Tails being controlled by either the computer, or a second player if present.
The game is made up of six levels, each containing two parts with a boss at the end. When the game is cleared, players become able to play any level.
Characters now have unique abilities, performed by pressing the jump button a second time while in mid-air. Sonic can perform a split second "shield" move that provides both burst of protection and expands his attack range. Tails has the ability to fly in the air or swim underwater for a short amount of time before he gets tired and comes back down, allowing him to explore areas Sonic cannot. While flying, his tails can be used to attack enemies. Additionally, if a second player controls Tails, they can carry Sonic while flying. The game also introduces three kinds of shields; thunder, which protects against electricity and magnetically attracts rings, fire, which protects against fire attacks, and bubble, which allows its wearer to breathe underwater. When Sonic uses these shields, he can perform an additional skill based on his shield.
Hitting star post checkpoints while possessing 50 or more rings allows the player to access a bonus stage, where Sonic must bounce against bumpers to hit a gumball machine that releases bonus items such as rings, shield and extra lives.
Special Stages can be entered by finding giant rings hidden throughout each stage. In these stages, players navigate a three dimensional space where the goal is to collect all the blue spheres in the level without touching any red ones. Collecting blue spheres transforms them into red ones, but if a player goes around the edge of a group of blue spheres at least 3x3 in size, all the spheres in that group will transform into rings, which can earn continues if enough are collected. Successfully completing these Special Stages earns the player a Chaos Emerald, which players able to access the good ending if all seven are collected. Additionally, if Sonic collects all seven emeralds, he can transform into Super Sonic after collecting at least 50 rings. Additional emeralds known as Super Emeralds can be obtained if the game is locked on with Sonic & Knuckles, which enable Sonic and Tails to become Hyper Sonic and Super Tails with unique abilities.
Competition Mode is a competitive mode in which two players, playing as either Sonic, Tails or Knuckles, race against each other through five laps on an endless level, unrelated to the levels played in the main game. During the game, players can collect items to either help themselves or hinder their opponent. There are three game types available: Grand Prix, in which all five tracks are playing continuously, Single Race, where a single track is chosen to race on, or Time Trial, a single player mode in which players try to clear the five laps in the quickest time possible.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic & Knuckles were originally to be released as one game.[2] However, due to time and money contraints, it was later split into two separate games. However, Sonic & Knuckles contained "Lock-on Technology", where the Sonic & Knuckles cartridge would be put in the Sega Genesis system, and then another game could be placed onto the top of the Sonic & Knuckles cartridge itself.[3] When Sonic 3 is used in this manner, it enables the player to play through both games all at once. This features several additions to the games not available otherwise, such as small alterations to the levels, and being able to play through Sonic 3 levels as Knuckles, or Sonic & Knuckles levels as Tails.
After Sonic defeats Dr. Robotnik at the end of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, his space station, the Death Egg, crash-lands on a mystical floating landmass called Angel Island. As Dr. Robotnik begins to repair the damaged ship, he meets up with Knuckles the Echidna, the last surviving member of an ancient civilization of Echidnas that once inhabited the island. He is also the guardian of the Master Emerald, which grants the island its levitation powers.
Knowing Sonic and Tails will try to track him down, and realizing he can use the Master Emerald to power the ship, Dr. Robotnik dupes Knuckles into believing Sonic is trying to steal his Emerald. Shortly after, Sonic and Tails in their biplane, the Tornado, are in search of Dr. Robotnik. Sonic, possessing the emeralds from the events of Sonic 2, then turns into Super Sonic. As soon as they arrive, Knuckles ambushes Sonic from underground and knocks the Chaos Emeralds from him, returning him to normal. Knuckles steals the Emeralds and disappears inland. As Sonic and Tails travel through the levels, they encounter Knuckles in almost every level, hindering their progress.
In the last level, the Launch Base Zone, the Death Egg launches off for the second time, knocking Knuckles off a pole and sending him plummeting to the ground. Sonic travels to a platform on the Death Egg, fights, and defeats Robotnik for the last time in the game. The Death Egg is seen falling and exploding. The second half of the story plays out in Sonic & Knuckles.
Yuji Naka and Hirokazu Yasuhara were mainly responsible for the Sonic 3 design document and project schedule.[4] Sonic 3 originally began as a top-down, isometric game, similar to what would eventually become Sonic 3D Blast. This concept was abandoned early into development, after the team did not want to change the Sonic formula too radically for a sequel.[5]
Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles were originally planned as one single-cartridge game. However, as time constraints and the manufacturing costs of a 34 megabit cartridge[6] with NVRAM would have been prohibitively expensive, the decision was made to split the game in half, giving Yuji Naka and the other developers more time to finish the second part, and splitting the high cost between two cartridges.[7]
The cartridge has a small amount of non-volatile RAM built into it, which allows the player to save game progress to the game cartridge.
Sonic 3 was released in the US on February 2, 1994, dubbed "Hedgehog Day", a reference to Groundhog Day. Toys "R" Us rewarded preorders with the limited edition CD Sonic Boom, containing music from and inspired by Sonic CD and Sonic Spinball.[8]
In Europe, Sonic 3 was released on February 24, 1994. To help promote the game, Right Said Fred wrote the song Wonderman, including references to many aspects of Sonic.[9] The song was used both in the game adverts, and released as a single, which charted in the UK at number 55. In the music video, Fez and Skull from the Pirate TV Sega advertising campaign appeared along with Sonic.
According to STI director Roger Hector, Michael Jackson was initially brought in during development to compose music for the game, even though no mention of his involvement was included in any of the game's credits. This was supposedly due to the scandals that arose around Jackson at the time. His involvement was removed from the title, and much reworking, including all the started music, had to be done.[10] These claims are dubious, however, and various interviews have made it clear that any involvement Jackson may have had was done without the knowledge of Sega's executives or marketing staff, and no contracts or formal agreements had ever been made.[11] James Hansen, of Sonic Stuff Research Group, retorts that Cirocco (credited as "Scirocco" in Sonic 3) still has possession of presumably a demo version of fabled soundtrack. "I actually have "ALL" of the tracks...," he writes, "from the original humming of Michael calling in the middle of the night leaving messages, to his ideas at Record One with Matt and Bruce. - BUT, I don't think I can let any of that out to the public without permission." [11] In December 2009, Michael Jackson's composer, Brad Buxer, told French magazine Black & White that Jackson was actually involved with some of Sonic 3's compositions, supposedly not being credited because he wasn't happy with how they sounded, due to the lack of optimal sound reproduction on the Genesis. Buxer also claimed that the ending music of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 later became the basis for Jackson's single Stranger in Moscow.[12]
Compilations that include the game are Sonic Jam (1997) for the Sega Saturn; Sonic & Knuckles Collection (1997) and Sonic & Garfield Pack (1999) for the PC, Sonic Mega Collection (2002) for the Nintendo GameCube; Sonic Mega Collection Plus (2004) for the PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC; Sega Genesis Collection (2006) for the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable; Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection (2009) for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3; and Sonic Classic Collection (2010) for the Nintendo DS.
Most compilations feature the game largely unchanged. However, Sonic Jam in addition to featuring the original release; also had a few new "remix" options. "Medium" mode altered the layout of rings and hazards and "Easy" mode removes certain acts entirely from the game.
The game was released for the Wii's Virtual Console for download in September 2007.[13] The game was released for the Xbox Live Arcade on June 10, 2009.[14] This version has enhanced graphics for high definition displays as well as online leaderboards and support for multiplayer via split screen and Xbox Live. The original method of saving the game is replaced with a revamped version that allows progress to be saved anywhere during play, but does not track progress in the game post-completion.
Reception for the game has been mostly positive. IGN praised the game, giving it a 9/10 and claimed it was the best of the original trilogy of Sonic games for the Sega Genesis, stating "Sonic 1 we called impressive. Sonic 2 we labeled great. Sonic 3, though, is the best of them all – and deservingly earns the highest score of the trilogy."[15] Gamespot also saw it as an improvement to the series, stating "the levels in Sonic 3 offer more interaction than those in previous games, in the form of such things as zip lines, fireman's poles, and giant tree trunks that you can climb by running upward inside of them. You'll also find a boss waiting for you at the end of every level (as opposed to every other level in Sonic 2), and these bosses tend to rip apart the background more often than the bosses in previous Sonic games. Coincidentally, the graphics in Sonic 3, especially the backgrounds, are pretty elaborate, as well as full of animated effects, such as swaying plants and heat distortion."[16] Electronic Gaming Monthly praised the game as well, giving it an 9.5 out of 10.[17]
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 has sold 1.02 million copies on the Sega Genesis.[18] It is less than Sonic 2 at 6 million, and the original Sonic at 15 million, but unlike the prior games, it was not bundled with the Sega Genesis system itself.[19][20] It still managed to place in the top 10 selling Sega Genesis games of all time.
Issues 33 and 34 of Sonic the Comic, and issue 13 of the Archie comics version of a Sonic the Hedgehog comic consisted of their own comic adaptations of the game.
For Sonic's 20th Anniversary, Sega released Sonic Generations, a game that remade aspects of various past games from the franchise. The Nintendo 3DS version of the game featuers a remake of the "Launch Base" boss "Big Arm". Additionally, a remixed version of the "Game Over" song appeared in the game.
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